EDUCATION

The District Directorate of the Ghana Education Service has the management and oversight responsibility of the educational sector (i.e. formal, non formal, public and private) in the District:  

LITERACY

Literacy has been defined as the ability to read and write at least one Language. Although literacy can be achieved without Formal Education, Formal education is important in acquiring skills needed in the labour market.

According to the 2010 PHC, the adult literacy rate in the Districts is 77.2% which is almost equal to the national average of 74.1% and lower than the region’s average of 78.2%.

The statistics further shows that whereas 85.3% of the men are literate it is only 70% of women whom are literate. This situation calls for the need to encourage and support women to attend adult literacy classes.

FORMAL EDUCATION

The District has 256 schools, comprising of both Public and Private of various types.

Table 20: Vital Information on Education

Source: (GES, ASDA 2016)

Fig 8: Schools Enrolments

As expected, primary schools outnumber the rest. This is followed by nursery, and Junior Secondary Schools. There are however, only four (4) Senior Secondary schools and one (1) recognized vocational school in the District.

PRE-SCHOOL

There are 11,799 pupils at the pre-school level in the District. The girl-child enrolment is 49% which is inconsistent with the total female- male ratio of the District. This calls for the need to encourage parents to send their girl child to school.

The Pre-school teacher - pupil ratio of 70:1 is about twice above the standard ratio of 1: 35 .This put a lot of stress on the teacher and therefore results in low standard of education in the District

PRIMARY SCHOOL

There are 92 primary schools in the District out of which 74 are public and 18 of private ownership. The enrolment is 22,195. Here the girl –child enrolment level is 49% and the pupilteacher ratio is 43.1 which is higher than the standard figure of 35.1.

The high enrolment level at the basic level could be attributed to the capitation grant and school feeding programmes.

JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

There are 64 JHS with a total enrolment of 7,749. Here the Girl Child enrolment is 48% which is about 1.0% less than the primary school figure. This high dropout rate might be due to:

1. Teenage pregnancy

 2. Early Marriage
3. Poor accessibility

Again the pupil – teacher ratio of 24:1 is quite below the national ratio of 35:1

The above calls for need to intensify the enrolment drive in the District. More so it is recommended that most of the teachers recruited under the National Youth Employment Programme should be posted to Pre- schools and Primary Schools

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

The District has four (4) SHS with a total enrolment of 3,731. This also puts the girl child enrolment level at 44.5% and the student teacher ratio at 24:1. Like in the JHS, the low enrolment levels might be attributed to:

1. Unattractive nature of the schools.
2 The spillover effect of the low enrolment level at JHS
3. Poor academic performance.

This is evidenced by the placement of the Secondary schools in the national SHSCE results as published by WAEC.

Table 20: National SHSCE Pass rate

GES, 2013

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE/ ENROLMENT

Reports from the 2010 PHC indicates that 64.3% of the people in the District are enrolled in schools at different levels. It is however 79.3% in Cape Coast, 65.1% in Abura-Asebu Kwamankese District and 63.4% as the region’s average. This is not encouraging; the District Assembly has to do more in improving the quality of teaching and learning and the retention of trained teachers posted to the District.

ACCESSIBILITY

Available statistics from the Statistical Service shows that Assin South and Ajumako-EnyanEssiam Districts still have communities, where 1.1% and 3.6% of pupils respectively travel more than 10kms to access primary and JSS school education. This trend undoubtedly could lead to high dropout rate especially among the girl child. This therefore calls for serious intervention in those communities affected.

Table 19: School Statistics on Type of School, No of Teachers and Pupil Teacher Ratio

Source: GES, ASDA: 2016

The table above suggests that the SPRs for Primary, JHS and SHS are encouraging and need to be improved. The same cannot be said of Preschool and girl child enrolments. In view of the above the policy directive at the KG level should focus on enrolment drive which is in line with the New Education Policy.

The table also reveals that the SPR for SHS far exceeds that of the JHS. This might be due to the inflow of students outside the District and the computer selection.

In absolute terms, the statistics also shows that the enrolment level of the girl child is far lower than that of the boy child.

In view of the above, the focus should be towards sensitization of parent to send their girl child to school. Also the District Assembly should endeavour to sponsor the needy girl child in the District

With the high SPR at the SHS level, the existing infrastructure should be upgraded to attract more students. Effort should also be made to improve the SPR at the JSS level to attract more indigenes to the SSS level.

TEACHERS

Out of the 1,358 teachers in the District 682 are trained, whilst the other 676 are untrained. The untrained is about 50.2 % of the total teacher population: It is therefore very important that the District assembly takes the Teacher trainee sponsorship programme very seriously. In addition, the untrained teachers must be encouraged to access the Distance Education Programmes being undertaken in our Tertiary institutions.

NUMBER OF TEACHERS NEEDED

There are inadequate teachers at Nursery and Primary levels. This is confirmed by the high pupilteacher ratio in the District as indicated in table 14 above.

INFRASTRUCTURE

Some of the schools lack toilet and urinal facilities and are in dilapidated conditions such that they need to be pulled down and replaced.

It is worth mentioning that ASDA in collaboration with donors and agencies such as GETfund, UNICEF, GSOP and JICA have made frantic effort to address the above infrastructural challenges.